Branch House seen through dogwood blossoms.

Armchair Adventures

published April 22, 2012

by Paul Sullivan

A Great House and Two Plastic Spoons

Richmond, Va.-With at least 27,000-square feet of floor space, you'd expect this city's Branch House to be imposing.

            Sure, it's big, I thought, seeing the Monument Avenue behemoth for the first time.

            But it reminded me of driving to work long ago when I taught high school far away at a building that looked a lot like that in New Zealand.

            The reason was the architectural style, known in both those both buildings (and countless others) as Tudor Revival.

            This was going to be interesting.

            The Branch House, also sometimes called the Branch Castle, is the largest residence in Richmond. Depending on your definition of a "room," it has either 28 or 63 of them. And although some sources say there are 11 levels in the house, that's only if you count each step-down  or step-up. It's actually four quite large floors of space.

            Today, the house is again a home-to the Virginia offices of the American Institute of Architects. But with more than ample space, the first and two levels serve as an architectural museum of sorts.

            Banker and financier John K. Branch and his wife, Beaulah, hired renowned architect John Russell Pope to design their Richmond home, which takes its primary cues from Britain's Compton Wynyate Castle in Warwickshire-a somewhat larger Tudor Revival estate.

            Construction was undertaken during World War I, on half a block of land near Richmond's Union Station. That handsome station, coincidentally, which today houses the Science Museum of Virginia, is another Pope-designed building.

            By 1919, Branch House was completed. A source familiar with the building's history said the Branch family never occupied the home year-round. Although they were Virginians, the new owners apparently spent most of their year at their Pawling, N.Y., farm estate, although they later acquired a villa in the vicinity of Florence, Italy. They occupied the Richmond home for a few months in wintertime.

            We visited on a Saturday and nearly had the place to ourselves. The gentleman in the gift shop was quite knowledgeable about this most impressive home. He even took us upstairs for a quick walk-through of the second floor, including the magnificent formal dining room. That space, with its beautiful pale blue ceiling adorned by carved white moldings, was probably my favorite.

            The third (fourth depending on how you're counting) floor is leased office space.

            Mr. and Mrs. Branch were avid collectors of Italian Renaissance art, carvings, tapestries and furniture. At one time, during the 20-odd years of their occupation there, it contained a substantial part of their collections.

            Few of those antiquities remain, although a beautiful double-door set on the first floor, opposite the gift shop, is one exception.

            We explored the house at our leisure, taking special care to learn more about its design and history in a small museum dedicated to it on the first floor.

            Afterward, we went outside and enjoyed the walled backyard, where there are excellent views of architectural detailing. Don't miss the semi-turreted corner, the hewn-timbers set-in brick, the handsome window gables. And pay particular attention to the wonderful triple brick chimneys-each different.

            I have to take a big leap here, from Richmond's Monument Avenue with its stately homes, broad median and eponymous memorials, to Mount Olympus Farm in Caroline County. When we get the chance we like to stop there.

            Taking US 1, we stopped at the farm this time. As I settled into the porch swing to gaze out over the farm fields and the picturesque pond with its nice shade tree, my friend, CG, brought a pint of Trickling Springs butterscotch toffee parfait ice cream.

            She handed me one of the two spoons. We settled down in silence to the serious business of doing in that box of ice cream.

            "It just doesn't get any better than this," I said.

            She nodded.

            I understood her silence.